


i'm going to make this place your home

by smokesque



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, by that i mean it's canon except mary is alive, canon-typical warnings apply, this got away from me i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12889101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokesque/pseuds/smokesque
Summary: Neil traced the outline of her figure, familiar yet unrecognisable in places where time had broken her back, until his eyes caught hers and Mary Hatford—she of the false identities and paranoid promises, of hotel rooms and guns under unfamiliar pillows, of firm love and firmer bruises—blinked back at him.





	i'm going to make this place your home

**Author's Note:**

> this is a gift for [bluetheking](https://bluetheking.tumblr.com/) as part of the aftg winter exchange. you mentioned mary coming back and i was all too happy to comply (albeit with a significantly longer and angstier fic than i intended). i hope you enjoy it, and happy holidays!
> 
> canon-typical warnings apply, namely violence, abuse (specifically parental), alcohol, and mentions of past torture
> 
> titled lifted from ['home'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRkntoHkIE) by phillip phillips

Neil Josten, starting striker for the Palmetto State Foxes and reluctant protégé of one of the country’s most notorious mob bosses, had given larger men than himself reason to quiver in their boots. (Not that larger men than himself were all that unusual to come by, but Neil wasn’t ashamed to appraise himself for the several six-foot-something would-be-giants who knew from experience not to turn their backs on him.) It wasn’t so much that his history of violence preceded him—probably a good thing too, as Neil rarely came out on top of his spats once they turned to fist and flesh—but it was hardly considered confidential that what he lacked in muscular finesse, he made up for in guts and a somewhat slow brain-to-mouth filter. The point being, Neil had a handful of subjugated bullies (to use a term that wouldn’t leave his grandmother rolling in her grave) under his belt, a team of short-tempered and overprotective ruffians at his back, and almost nothing to worry about. Or so he would have attempted to reassure himself had he known who was eagerly awaiting his return to Fox Tower.

Vacation was difficult to manage when you were a Fox. Especially when your makeshift family consisted of two progenies of a nationwide crime empire, one legally recognised psychopath, a murderer (or two), and their legal guardian. _Especially_ when Kevin Day and Andrew Minyard were involved. Because Kevin Day refused to let an exy court out of his sight for more than twenty-four hours and Andrew Minyard refused to let _Kevin_ out of _his_ sight for more than maybe one hour tops. So they were a little restricted on holiday destinations and the house in Columbia was more of a second home than anything, but none of them were complaining when it meant easy access to Eden’s Twilight at a moment’s notice and radio silence from Coach Wymack who was usually not hesitant to hound them into extra practice over break. (Plus, Neil wasn’t exactly averse to having Andrew, a double bed, and a door with a lock all to himself for a whole weekend.)

But the break came to an end, as it always seems to, and they were several hours overdue their agreed return to campus by the time they managed to drag themselves and their bags—now severely lighter than they had been five days prior, what with the copious consumption of alcohol they had partaken in—out to the Maserati. Erik, having spent most of Thanksgiving holed up in Nicky’s room with a metaphorical sock on the doorknob, had seen them off at the kerb before heading his own direction to the airport, so Nicky’s demeanour was somewhat subdued during their ride back. They spent the journey in formulaic silence, but Neil was still riding a vacation high and had successfully relegated Kevin to the backseat, giving Neil ample opportunity to admire the set of Andrew’s jaw and the clench of his knuckles over the wheel from the corner of his eye. A good end to a weekend of good beginnings, Neil thought. So, naturally, the universe threw a little English on the ball as they pulled into the Fox Tower parking lot.

The first sign of trouble came in the form of Dan Wilds standing outside the entrance; arms crossed, teeth clenched, and foot tapping an unsteady rhythm into the paving stones.

“You’re late,” she said, with unnatural terseness. Nicky shrugged as he scrambled out, bouncing back from his Erik-induced mourning with practised ease.

“It’s Thanksgiving. Forgive us for getting a little carried away,” he offered by way of explanation, but Dan barely spared him a second glance. Her gaze fell instead to Neil, cracking his back as he made his way slowly round the hood of the car.

“Neil. Inside. Now. The rest of you stay.”

In his peripheral, Neil caught Nicky grabbing at Kevin’s wrist before he could move to follow but no one raised a finger to stop Andrew as he shouldered his way through the doors behind them. Neil considered telling him to wait, but dismissed the thought almost immediately. Whatever he was about to walk into (and no doubt it was bad, if it had Dan as tense as she was), he didn’t much fancy going in alone.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Dan said, as the elevator rattled to a halt on the third floor. “And then I want an explanation.”

Neil could have paused to assess the situation, but Dan sidestepped the opening elevator doors in a clear invitation for Neil to lead the way, so he bit the bullet and moved forwards. Matt was leaning stiffly against the wall outside the room he shared with Aaron and Nicky, the same tenseness lacing his frame as Dan’s. Neil thought there was a greeting somewhere on his tongue ready to spill, but it died the second his gaze flitted to the woman standing alongside. Though years had etched wrinkles into her skin and a new stoop to her shoulders, the long, curly hair and dark, weathered skin was unmistakeable. Neil traced the outline of her figure, familiar yet unrecognisable in places where time had broken her back, until his eyes caught hers and Mary Hatford—she of the false identities and paranoid promises, of hotel rooms and guns under unfamiliar pillows, of firm love and firmer bruises—blinked back at him.

Seconds passed. Minutes stole the breath from Neil’s lungs. Days melted their surroundings into shadows until Neil knew nothing, nothing, _nothing_ but the slit-eyed stare cradling him in arms like vices. He was walking, maybe, though he couldn’t see far enough to check his feet were actually stepping one in front of the other. The whole world became a tightrope; his past at one end, his present and future at the other, and him—a weightless body in between, two gusts away from blowing off into the horizon.

Everything tilted back into sharp colour with the slide of a hand into Neil’s hair. Pain jolted through his scalp, familiar and welcoming, with a tug to drag him forwards.

“Abram.”

He hadn’t thought he’d hear that voice again, like knives and blood and running running running, but Mary pressed her cheek to his, her lips a weight at the lobe of his ear, and whispered his name twice more like he might disappear if she didn’t give him solidity enough to stay. He had an inch on her now—the product of sunshine and full meals, while she tucked herself into dampened corners—but he shrank under her fist, shedding years of his life until eight-year-old Abram stared at her wide-eyed, knowing nothing but hurt and losing.

This was coming home after a lifetime of leaving, and Neil felt sick to his stomach.

“Neil,” Andrew said, a million miles away but hurtling towards them at breakneck speed. Neil twisted, searching for a different kind of home, a different kind of family that didn’t leave the taste of bile heavy in his mouth, but Mary held him in place with a sharp tug that sent lightning down his spine. She gave enough leeway for him to pull back just slightly, to watch the way her gaze pierced through Andrew and saw everything Neil didn’t have words for yet.

“Your father is dead. We have a lot to discuss,” she said at length, relinquishing her hold with a jerk and making uniform steps towards the stairs. It took no thought for Neil to follow—his feet knew their place even if his brain didn’t.

“Neil, who—” Dan started, a hand out as if to stop him. He gave her a rueful smile, gaze flitting between her and Matt, and ignoring Andrew with calculated difficulty.

“My mother,” he said honestly, because there was nothing left to lie about. “Team meeting when I get back?”

And he left them, stranded aimlessly on the third floor with their thoughts in utter turmoil.

Mary waited for him in the stairwell and set off again the second he made an appearance, light and quick on her feet as ever despite the age lining deep frown lines on her brow. The rest of Andrew’s lot were leant up against the Maserati, waiting obediently for a signal to enter. Nicky made to call out, but a curt shake of Neil’s head and the unfamiliar presence stepping out into the open seemed to cut him off short.

“Take me somewhere,” Mary said, without sparing a glance at the three blatantly obvious onlookers. “Somewhere we can talk.”

Neil took the lead, trailing Perimeter Road down to the campus green. It was empty enough in the early evening, the frosty edge of winter riding in on the skirts of autumn, that they could talk without fear of eavesdroppers, but open and close to home still so Neil could squash the urge to seek out every possible escape route. It was old habit buried under months of safety and security, but it came rushing back with the furtive twitch of Mary’s eye that brought his past knocking no matter how desperately he tried to bar up the door.

They stared each other down with clenched fists and tight jaws, an insurmountable rift and three feet of grass between them. Time was nothing when Mary held him in her eyes—minutes passed unchallenged and he let them wash over him. How long they stood there, he did not know, but one minute Mary watched him like a dark cloud hovering just out of reach and the next, something cleared in her vision. Thunderclouds still claimed the corners of Neil’s eyes; else, he might have ducked before his cheek began to sting. (It would have been futile. _Submit_ , his body screamed, _it’s the only thing you know how to do_.) He could feel every inch of Mary’s open palm imprint itself onto mottled skin, leaving bruises further than skin deep on parts of him that he didn’t know how to bandage up. It felt like home and fear, and tasted just bittersweet enough for Neil to know this was where he belonged.

“You idiot,” Mary hissed, grafting a hand to his scalp again and pressing the thumb of her other into the base of his throat, pushing _down down down_ until breathing was nothing but a distant memory. “You never learn, do you?”

Neil closed his eyes, took a shallow breath through his nose, and let himself relax in her grip. This was familiarity, was comfort. Above all else, he knew how to be Mary Hatford’s son.

The pressure at his throat disappeared but the hand remained in his hair, nails digging just deep enough to make him wince if he moved. He could feel his cheek spasm where the phantom weight of her slap still rested and his nerves ran dead ends across scarred flesh. Every movement, every brush of her skin against his, was magnified, electrifying him from head to toe.

“Did you keep _any_ of your promises?” she said, her voice a whisper one hundred decibels too loud for the quiet atmosphere.

“I did.”

The first words Neil had spoken to her since her supposed death three years ago. They tasted like gasoline and sand in his mouth.

“Liar.” Mary’s hand tightened in his hair and Neil could feel the tug of each separate strand like a thousand tiny needles biting into his skin. He gasped softly, just short of a keening whine, and let his eyes roll closed again. The pain had a grasp on his brain but through the fuzziness, he could feel her warmth where she was almost brushing against his chest. She was _right here_ despite everything, despite Neil’s incompetence and his brashness and his breaking, always breaking. She had come back for him. He always knew she would.

“It’s not a lie,” he said, teeth gritted against a plea that he would never let her hear. “You. I never told them about you.”

Her hand disappeared, slipping away so quickly he stumbled under the weight of having to hold himself up. There was a foot of air between them before he managed to catch himself, and it felt like losing all over again, like reaching desperately for something— _someone_ —already gone. Neil watched his mother step away from him as eagerly as she’d moved closer. Little Abram watched a car go up in flames.

“They thought you were dead,” Neil said. There was no squeeze at his throat, no yank in his hair, but the words came out a gasp anyway. He had lost his breath three years ago on a beach in California and had failed to catch it ever since. “I told them you were.”

Mary held her glare a few seconds longer, expression unreadable as it always had been. Neil had long since given up searching for telling in her eyes. She had always been the better liar of the two.

“I wasn’t good enough for this life? You gave them everything, but you left me behind?”

And _this_ —this was familiar. There was no winning against Mary Hatford. Neil could play all his cards right, but it wouldn’t change the fact he’d been dealt a duff hand. Losing was easy; boys like Neil Josten were not built to be winners.

“They let me be a part of their family. I didn’t want to screw it up,” he said anyway, because, despite a year of healing and learning, there was a death wish under his tongue and violence ingrained in his bones. He didn’t know how to survive when he wasn’t putting himself in danger.

Mary’s fist cracking against Neil’s jaw was a new sensation. Her open palm he knew as well as his own—every splay of her fingers, every crease of her skin. There was the weight of a golf club imprinted to his torso, far more permanent than any bruise or scar. The bite of her nails into his flesh until they drew blood was a fresh reminder on every inch of his body. She had been tough love, hurting and healing on repeat until he learnt his place, tearing him apart herself so that no one else got the chance to. But the clench of her fist was unfamiliar—a weight he did not carry in the back of his mind. He felt it now as she collided with his chin, tectonic plates meeting in a rupture of the skies. Neil was mountains, and earthquakes, and crumbling under weights unknown. After all this time, Mary knew best how to pick him undone.

“ _I_ am your family.”

Her voice was dangerously quiet and leaking venom from places where her resolve cracked through, but the words were honey to Neil’s tongue and nothing had ever tasted sweeter.

“Abram, we’re all we have. You won’t leave me again, okay?”

Neil could have screamed; could have reminded her it was _she_ who left _him_ stranded on California’s coastline with hands that smelled like burning metal. He could have turned his back and slipped easily into the life he had made in her absence. He could have. He didn’t.

“We’re all we have,” he echoed, and when she reached to cup his face between her rough palms, he tilted into the touch. She was his family. She would not leave again.

“Come home with me. The season is almost over. We’ll do Christmas,” Mary said.

“Home?” he asked. The word sounded like Foxes, like court walls and keyrings and Columbia and Andrew’s thigh pressed to his on the couch. Andrew. The word sounded like Andrew.

“England. Your uncle has given us a place to stay. We’ll be safe at last.”

Safety would always be a novelty to Neil, a luxury he could not afford to indulge. He thought of Wymack picking him up from the airport, of Allison smoothing foundation over his skin, of Andrew holding him together in hotel rooms and bathroom showers and at the end of the world. And he thought of his mother drying his tears and holding his hand, of unfamiliar faces blinking out of cracked mirrors, of bandages and alcohol and smoke. And maybe he already knew what it was to feel safe. Maybe he always had.

“Okay. Let’s go home.”

***

The journey back to Fox Tower passed in relative silence, but Neil’s thoughts were buzzing into overdrive. He didn’t need to imagine the look on his teammates’ faces when he told them what he had agreed to—he had seen it too many times already. But he had only promised to go home, not to stay. He would spend Christmas in England with Mary and Stuart, and would be back before the season started up again. They would hardly notice his absence.

Mary left him in the parking lot, promising her hotel was nearby and she would come back for him soon. Neil’s apprehension heightened as he took the stairs up to their floor, prolonging the inevitable as indefinitely as he could.

He wasn’t remotely surprised when he let himself into his dorm to find more than just Kevin and Andrew awaiting his return. The Foxes (minus the freshmen) were spread across the couches and floor, silence and concern tense in the air. The click of the door shutting behind Neil was enough to rouse them from their vigil, and he paused just inside the doorway as eight heads turned to meet him.

There were several sharp intakes of breath and Renee’s quiet “Oh Neil”, but Neil’s focus was on Andrew, who had risen almost instantly and was pacing steadily towards the door. Neil didn’t miss the way he fingered the edge of his armbands carefully, as if double checking the presence of his knives.

“Andrew,” he said warningly, taking a shuffled step back towards the door in a feeble attempt to block it from Andrew’s sight. It did nothing to deter him.

“I’m going to kill her.”

Andrew sounded about as cheerful as Neil had ever heard him off-medication, but it hardly masked the ferocity behind his words. Neil may not have wanted to admit it, but he knew Andrew meant every syllable. He backed up fully against the door, pressing himself flush against the wooden frame.

“No,” Neil said, loudly enough for someone to flinch across the room, but his eyes stayed fixated on the way Andrew’s arm stilled a hair’s breadth from jostling Neil out of the way. “We don’t have a deal anymore and I’m not in danger anyway. I’m asking you to stay out of it.”

His voice left a heavy silence in the air, tight with levelled stares and held breaths. The room was still clustered with bodies, but they might have melted into nonexistence for all Neil noticed their presence, because Andrew wasn’t retreating, wasn’t blinking, was there but wasn’t _there_ there and Neil needed so desperately to bring him back before things turned nasty.

“Someone needs to tell her what happens when she touches my things.”

The words were careful, like bow to string; dangerous, like match to flame; deadly, like blade to heart. Neil heard the venom laced through them and knew it meant Andrew was only backing _down_ , not _off_.

“Let me.”

Andrew’s hand dropped like a weight at that, falling heavily to his side. He turned away before Neil caught his expression, but couldn’t mask the way his hand curled a fist into the hem of his shirt. He settled wordlessly back into the couch, the space between him and Kevin an open invitation. Andrew would wait. The other Foxes deserved an explanation first.

Neil took the proffered seat, wincing at the five sets of eyes that tracked his bruised jaw. They had gathered to hear him spill secrets around worse injuries, but he was rough edges and raw interior, and every cut and bruise would always leave them on edge.

Neil cast his eyes to the cornice where the wall met the ceiling and spread his hands open, palm-up in his lap, searching for a place to start. The freshmen were spared this impromptu team gathering, and he was stupidly grateful. They knew of the history that undermined Neil Josten as Nathaniel Wesninski, because they were Foxes and reserved the right to know who they were playing for, but there were parts of him they’d never understand. They hadn’t seen him disappear into the shadows at the edge of his home state; hadn’t seen him spill himself all over the floor in a mad rush to let out everything he should never have kept hidden; hadn’t seen him return time and again a bloodied, broken mess just to let his family patch him back up from loose threads and gentle touches between them. And, for everything they knew and everything they couldn’t understand, this was something they didn’t need to be privy to.

“Mary Hatford didn’t die from internal bleeding on a beach in California. And when I burned the car, she wasn’t inside it.”

Neil could almost hear the sound of eight brains whirring to keep up with this new information. No one prompted him further. He thought it would be easier to speak once he got the first sentence out, but something stuck in the back of his throat, making it difficult to swallow or breathe or find words enough to explain himself.

When he hadn’t heard from her after a year in Millport, he figured that was it. He had never intended to tell the Foxes about her—it was the one promise he couldn’t bring himself to break. But nor had he thought she would come back for him. Hoped, yes, but it seemed nothing more than childish dreams. Suffice to say, he was not prepared for this conversation.

“It was safer if we weren’t together. My father’s people—they were looking for a woman and a boy. They never expected us to separate.”

“She abandoned you?” Allison said furiously, unable to stop herself from breaking the silence of Neil’s audience.

“She waited until I was eighteen,” Neil said before he could bite the words back. It was old habit to jump to her defence. There was no way to make them understand that everything Mary had done had been in his best interest. “I was an adult.”

“Barely,” Matt said, a look in his eye like he was remembering the Neil who had showed up to Palmetto State University with a duffel bag and a bubble of lies.

“She gave me money, and contacts if I ran into trouble. It was only temporary. We were supposed to find each other when it was safe, but…” Neil let his voice trail off but he was sure they knew where his words were headed. _But it’s never safe. But Nathan has eyes everywhere. But I am a burden and a threat to her survival._

“When I left Millport to come here, I didn’t think she would ever come looking for me. I never told you because I never thought it would come up.”

It sounded like a cheap excuse. He had promised them he wasn’t going to lie anymore, but it was too easy to fall back on the same old stories. As long as she was dead, Neil didn’t have to think about her. Some days he convinced even himself that she had met a quick death at the barrel of a gun; that she had been on her way back to him when a bullet lodged itself in her brain. It was easier than accepting that she just hadn’t cared enough to find him.

“ _Les Moriyamas savent-ils qu’elle est encore en vie_?” Kevin said, finally. His knuckles were taut where they clenched over his knee and his gaze a weight on Neil’s profile. Neil flicked a glance up to meet Kevin’s, before refocusing on the entire room.

“I don’t know how much the Moriyamas know,” he said, ignoring Kevin’s disapproving huff at the switch to English, “but if they knew she was alive, I doubt she would be for much longer.”

No one had a response to that. It was nothing but the bitter truth, distasteful and heavy on the tongue as honesty so often is. Mary was as much a loose end as Neil, and she didn’t have the benefit of a deal cut with Ichirou. If her survival was discovered, it would not last. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, sitting uncomfortably in the air between them, but nor was it a sad one. It was just the truth.

“Your face,” Nicky said, gesturing to the corresponding spot on his own jawline that bloomed purple on Neil’s. There was a question in there somewhere, though it didn’t quite sound like one. Neil answered anyway.

“My fault. I provoked her.”

Dan stood abruptly, Matt’s hand falling limply from her lap in the process. The tense set of her shoulders was mirrored in each of the Foxes as they pierced glares into the bruise at Neil’s chin. Neil twisted his head to Andrew, expecting to find comfort in casual indifference, but Andrew had stilled beside him. He wasn’t looking at Neil, but there was violence in his eyes—the reflection of blades, and car crashes, and the cold metal of a gun. His fist still creased the fabric of his shirt in a desperate attempt to hide the shake of his fingers, or to deter the anger claiming his muscles, Neil wasn’t sure which. Neil had seen his Foxes through thick and thin; had seen them throw fury between one another like exy balls; had seen them come together as he fell apart. He had seen them in pain and sorrow, and in honey-sweet triumph, but he had not seen them like this. With electricity crackling through the air between them. With clenched fists and grit teeth and anger so palpable Neil could feel it burning his skin.

“You know this isn’t okay, don’t you?” Renee asked softly, uncertainly. Her voice stole the tension from the room, leaching it from tight shoulders and bitten lips. Dan collapsed back onto the couch, as if the anger had been the only thing keeping her together, but she ignored the inviting hand Matt laid in the gap between them. Neil tried not to think too much of it.

“She’s just doing what’s best—”

“Don’t be so obtuse.”

Renee pressed her fingertips to Allison’s knee before she could say more, but Neil knew it did nothing to subside her fury. He couldn’t explain it—not in a way they would understand. They didn’t know how much of a nuisance Neil had been growing up, how often he had complained when they went without meals or when his feet were too blistered to walk further, how distracted he got by the little things like the local sports team or the soaps on hotel TVs. They didn’t know Mary had taught him the only way he would listen: with bruises and burns.

“You don’t understand,” he said, buying himself time as he searched for words to explain himself.

“I do,” Aaron said, before Neil could find what he was looking for. He didn’t offer anything further, but he caught Neil’s eye contact for the briefest of moments. It wasn’t warmth or comfort or even the vaguest essence of friendliness, but nor was it the cold, angry stare he usually reserved for Neil. It was just understanding. Support came in the strangest of forms.

“She won’t see you anymore. She isn’t welcome here,” Dan said, when it became apparent no one was chasing the thread Aaron left dangling in the air. She looked small and scared, anger brittle in the tremor of her fingers, but her voice didn’t shake once. Neil felt at once grateful and saddened, because he knew he had to let her down just once more.

“I’m staying with her for Christmas.”

“You’re _what_?” Nicky squawked. Several voices clamoured over one another, and Neil only caught fragments of each of them. _You’re not— She’ll kill— We won’t let— You can’t be serious._ It didn’t matter what they said. He had made up his mind. Because Neil knew what the others didn’t— _couldn’t_ —understand. He knew that Mary and he were a unit, two parts of a whole that would always find their way back to each other. Mary was no worse a person than Neil himself and, against all odds, she had risked everything to find him again. He wouldn’t let that be in vain.

***

(Two silhouettes and an empty rooftop. Forgotten cigarettes burning to the filter. A hand on the back of his neck instead of around his chin. _It’s your choice_.

Two hearts chasing circles around one another. Air dirty with mislaid secrets. Fingers in his hair to keep him steady, or keep him close, or keep him whole. _I’ll come back to you_.

Their lips were gentle when they touched, fire and fury as always, but only softness over bruised jaws. It hurt, it hurt—it healed.)

***

Neil left one family frowning after him in Upstate Regional Airport, and boarded a plane to his other. Mary had returned to England without him, but she swore black and blue she wouldn’t hesitate to show up on his doorstep again if Christmas came and went without delivering him to her. Despite his teammates’ concern, Neil wasn’t worried. He had lived with Mary for eighteen years. He had to believe she had already done her worst to him.

“It’s only two weeks,” Neil had said, when Matt squeezed his arm so hard he might have snapped it clean in two. There were worse ways to spend Christmas break. Neil would know—he had experienced them.

Mary was nothing short of sunshine and smiles when she picked Neil up from the airport. The radio played in the car on the drive to Stuart’s house, but she talked over it. She told him about her plans for Christmas—about dinner and movies and her special hot chocolate.

Neil could almost forget the last ten years of his life had happened. When he looked at Mary, he was nine years old and they were planning secret Christmas celebrations behind his father’s back. They could never do anything big with roast turkeys and stockings, but Mary made two mugs of hot chocolate every year and turned a blind eye when Neil snuck extra marshmallows from the bag. Their first year on the run, she had wasted their weekly expenses buying cocoa and marshmallows and made cheap hot chocolate in paper cups on Christmas Day. Neil remembered wrapping his small fingers around the cup long after its contents were gone and it was cold against his palm. Mary had had to pry it from him when they moved on the next morning.

Stuart’s house was a four-bedroomed affair on the outskirts of Brighton with six northward windows and a rooftop fire escape. Neil took all of this in as they stalled in the driveway, his relived memories leaving him raw and vulnerable, falling into abandoned routines. He had brought only his duffel with him, to avoid baggage claim at the airport, so he had no excuse to linger by the car after Mary stepped out. Walking up to the front door felt like a march to the gallows, and stepping over the threshold was putting the noose around his own neck. Neil spared a thought for his Foxes, hoped they would enjoy their respective Christmases, and sealed his fate.

Mary kept the household busy over the week leading up to the big day. They were doing Christmas properly this year, she insisted, since they were finally a family at last. There was only three of them in the house, but the meal they prepared in advance would have fed a professional exy team twice over. Neil found the methodical chopping, boiling, and calling to one another across the messy kitchen became a comfort after the first few days, but he could never quite relax. He locked the door to his room overnight and slept with one of Andrew’s knives under his pillow. It was less reassuring than a gun, but comforting nonetheless.

Whenever he wasn’t needed for preparations, Neil snuck out the fire escape and burned cigarettes on the roof. He had taken to buying Andrew’s brand out of habit, and the smoke smelled less like burning metal and more like the Foxhole Court. He thought more and more every day that he would survive this. Mary was playing at the mother he had always wanted her to be, and Stuart was as distant as Nathan but not nearly as dangerous. And Neil had a ticket to South Carolina tucked in the pocket of his duffel. He would make it home.

Christmas Eve brought the first inkling of the old Mary Hatford blinking back into existence. Neil’s defences were weakened, his thoughts muddled by the easy routine they had fallen into. He was standing in Stuart’s cosy sitting room, watching Mary stoke the fire and waiting for Nicky to text back with an update, when she made her move.

“You’ve grown soft, Abram. Too fond. Too trusting,” she said without looking up. Neil snapped his phone shut abruptly, focusing his attention on the muscles shifting in her shoulders as she jabbed the poker at the coals. He had known it was coming, long before he even arrived, but he’d let himself be lulled into a sense of security. _Stupid. Reckless._

“The blond one. You need to let him go,” Mary continued. Neil’s fist tightened around his phone. He wouldn’t fight her here—not in her own home, not on Christmas Eve.

“I can’t,” was all he said. It was the truth, plain and open like Mary had taught him never to tell it. He would not fight her. But he would let her know he wouldn’t break so easily these days.

“He isn’t good for you. He makes you weak.”

“He doesn’t,” Neil said, the defiance like copper on his tongue but still honest in ways he was learning to be. “He is my family.”

Neil Josten was the fastest striker in collegiate exy. He spent half his time dodging stray balls and hefty rackets. But even he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the poker that flew from his mother’s hands at those words. It glanced off his cheek before he could think to duck and, by instinct, he drew his arm up to force it away from his body, sending a searing pain all through his wrist. He crumpled, cradling his face with one hand and curling his body around the other in a measly form of protection. In the blink of an eye, he was tied to the passenger seat of a car, a dashboard lighter licking scars into his cheek. He was handcuffed to Kevin’s Evermore bed, a burning wire slowly peeling the skin from the palm of his hand. He was on the floor in his father’s Baltimore house, a heated iron discarded beside him and the sensation of every nerve in his shoulder being ripped one by one from his body.

“Oh, Abram. Silly Abram. Haven’t I always told you not to play with fire?”

Mary knelt at his side, pushing his hand away to tilt his face into her line of sight. Her cool fingers were a salve to his flaming cheek, and she held him together gently with a palm cupping his chin. Neil would fall apart without her—it was a wonder he hadn’t already. She knew how to treat burns, how to clean wounds, how to stitch him back together piece by careful piece.

“I know what’s best, remember? He is not good for you,” she said, her eyes full of concern as though she couldn’t have predicted the burning poker slipping from her own fingertips. She brushed his hair back with one hand and used the other to draw him close enough to kiss his forehead, all sense of anger stolen from her limbs. She had never been wrong before. Neil needed no further incentive to trust her.

“Okay, Mama,” he said, leaning into her touch like he was chasing the last breath of oxygen left on the planet. “Okay.”

***

Mary Hatford was a mother, not a gaoler. She didn’t lock doors or bar windows, because she didn’t need to. Because she was keeping only those who wished to be kept. This would be her downfall.

In lieu of a goodnight, Neil had received a rolling pin to the stomach for mentioning holiday meals with the Foxes, and a handful of painkillers by way of apology. The rolling pin had been wooden and flimsy, but Mary knew force if nothing else. As the evening wore on, breathing became a chore and movement nigh on impossible. Neil could feel the cracked rib worse than ever as he contorted his body to shimmy out the bathroom window, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and tugged himself out onto the window ledge. He dropped softly to the grassy outcrop framing the side of the house, spared a glance for the dark window of his second-storey bedroom, and was grateful the bathroom had been built a floor below. As soon as he was clear of the garden, Neil picked up speed, his instincts leading him towards the sound of buzzing traffic where he would hopefully be opportune enough to hitch a ride. His chest throbbed dully under the fissure in his ribs and his lungs ached for a break far earlier than he would usually need one, but not once did he glance back at the house he had left behind. There was no family for him there any longer.

Last minute tickets to the States weren’t cheap, but Neil had the luxury of having spent almost three years under one identity and the money saved was a godsend. The flight passed in mild discomfort, and Neil took to reciting exy stats to distract himself from the pain in his lower chest. Somehow, it kept him sane.

By the time he stepped out of Upstate Regional Airport into the chilly air of South Carolina’s winter, it was mid-morning on Christmas Day. Activity was sparse in the airport, but not entirely dead. Neil switched on his phone, his thumb automatically hovering over the speed dial. Andrew’s name was first, Wymack’s blinking just underneath, followed by the other Foxes one by one. He flicked the phone shut before he could tap any of them and moved off to hail a taxi. It was Christmas, after all. They were probably busy.

Fox Tower was empty when Neil let himself into the dorms to drop off his duffel, but he knew the way to Abby’s house by memory. It was a longer trek by foot than he had imagined—he started out at a jog but his ribcage screamed bloody murder until he relaxed into a casual stroll—and his injuries were a little worse for wear by the time he arrived. He paused in the driveway, an attempt to collect his composure from where it dragged at his heels masked under his need to catch a breath. The sitting room curtains were pulled wide and, through the bay windows, Neil could make out Andrew’s lot splayed across the room. He watched them for several precious minutes, a softness growing in his stomach, forcing its way through his chest, and cascading up his throat in a bubbling urge to tear up. The five of them (Neil included) had been planning to spend the holidays in Germany with Erik’s family, but had pulled out last minute to stay in South Carolina with Abby and Wymack. They never spoke about it, but they didn’t have to for Neil to know it was because of him. Because this is where he would come if things fell apart. Because he had returned alone from a broken Christmas once before and they would not let history repeat itself.

It took more effort than it was worth for Neil to force his gaze away from them and make the final few steps to the front door. He rang the doorbell, though he knew it would be unlocked, in a sudden bout of self-consciousness. He would always be welcome, he knew that, but it was too much to expect them to open their arms when he let himself be torn open time and time again. He would not walk in unannounced, and if they wanted him gone he would go.

It was Wymack who answered the door, half turned over his shoulder as the tail end of an insult left his lips. His smile was good-natured, _fond_ even, and Neil felt all the worse for forcing his inconvenience upon it. The expression slipped as Wymack turned his full attention to the doorway, replaced by rigid fury and barely-visible concern concealed under a glare.

“Christ, Neil. Not again.”

Neil knew the others were listening in, because the house went still the second his name was thrown into open air. Wymack dragged Neil inside with a firm grip on his shoulder the same instant as Andrew barged into the hallway, Nicky, Kevin, and Abby hard on his heels with Aaron trailing behind. Wymack was smart enough to drop his hold on Neil when Andrew approached and moved to hang back with the others. Neil barely noticed them out the corner of his vision—he was caught in the webs Andrew was spinning with furious eyes. They stared each other down, neither moving nor speaking. Andrew lifted a hand to hover over the burn on Neil’s cheek, but didn’t touch the tender flesh. His eyes flicked over Neil’s body, searching for further impairments.

“Where else?”

Neil raised his right arm, displaying the matching scar still fresh on his wrist.

“My ribs too. Something might be broken.”

“Shit,” Nicky breathed, somewhere to the right. Nobody else spoke. Andrew’s gaze continued to set itself on fire.

“Abby,” Andrew finally said into the thickened air. Abby squealed at the abrupt mention of her name but disappeared almost instantly in search of a First-Aid kit. Andrew lifted his arm again, brought it this time to hover over the back of Neil’s neck.

“Can I—?” he asked. Neil nodded—a little too quickly, a little too eagerly—and Andrew dropped the weight of it onto the juncture between Neil’s shoulders. For the first time since Mary’s unexpected appearance, Neil discovered that he still remembered how to breathe. All his jagged edges flowed out of him as Andrew steered him into the sitting room, leaving him raw and empty but finally with enough space to fill his lungs.

Andrew climbed onto the back of the couch and forced Neil down in front of him, his knees pressed just beneath Neil’s shoulder blades and his hand a constant presence pressing on Neil’s neck. Abby shooed the crowded Foxes out of her way as she hustled back through with the First-Aid kit in hand. She started with his burns, methodically dressing and wrapping them with gentle fingers. She was too familiar, had patched him up like this too many times. Neil watched the grey clouds passing over her face as she worked, and thought she did not deserve to look so grim. He hated himself all the worse for causing that expression too often to count.

When she moved on to press a gentle hand over his ribcage, the others mysteriously drifted out of the room, murmuring something about checking on the roast. Neil let Andrew tug his shirt up over his head, gasping a little at the pain it took to lift his arms so high, and Abby carefully prodded at the points where it hurt to breathe. Neil didn’t think about his mother’s smile when she saw him in Heathrow Airport, her hips swaying as she chopped potatoes in the kitchen, her eyes darkening as she slammed a rolling pin between his ribs and hissed at his mentions of family other than her. He focused instead on Andrew’s palm, flat and hot against his skin, and on the repetitive nature of his breaths. _In_. He was here, in this moment, in this house, not there in another. _Out._ He would not have to see Mary’s twisted scowl ever again. _In._ He was safe as long as he had this roof over his head, as long as he had this hand on his neck. _Out._ He was a Fox and he had a family who would always welcome him home.

Once Neil was fully clothed once again, the others crowded the room with platters of food and cheer just a little too buoyant to be believable. Wymack cast a cursory glance over Neil’s bandages, searching out answers in a silence that he knew better than to break.

“We will talk about your necessity to put yourself in unpleasant situations,” he said at length, “but right now, it’s Christmas. Let’s eat.”

They tucked into Abby’s usual spread, chatting around mouthfuls of food and swigs of wine. The elephant in the room that was Neil’s past was left untouched, but Andrew didn’t move from his position at Neil’s back and, bit by bit, Neil found his breath returning to him.

***

Boxing Day saw the two of them bundled in their matching coats, legs dangling off the side of the rooftop and breaths clouded around puffs of smoke. They had spent the morning at Abby’s, lazily cleaning the previous day’s messes and forcing Neil into another check-up, before they were released back to the Tower.

Now, they sat in silence and watched the sun disappear behind the hazy sea of buildings laid out in front of them. There was a question somewhere between them, unvoiced and ignored but it disrupted the air with its awkward presence. Neil watched Andrew smoke his cigarette to a stub, crushed his own into ash, and stared out at the rapidly vanishing horizon.

“I just wanted to go home.”

Andrew gave him a funny look at that, pressing the cherry of his cigarette into the roof beneath them absentmindedly. The whole world felt a million miles away when he shifted to face Neil properly. And Neil would climb through a thousand bathroom windows with a thousand broken ribs from a thousand jealous mothers for this moment. When it was just him, and Andrew, and the ground four storeys below.

“You are home,” Andrew said, then grabbed his chin in both hands and kissed him into the dying sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted on my tumblr @ [niickyhemmick](https://niickyhemmick.tumblr.com/post/168109785819/im-going-to-make-this-place-your-home)


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